Medical marijuana is not making U.S Attorney Melinda Haag's life easy. Among Bay Area cannabis advocates, she's become a loathed figure, scorned and mockedin unflattering effigy. All of this due to her role in the Justice Department's crackdown on state-legal medical marijuana clubs.

Haag has shut down more than a dozen taxpaying “pot shops” in the Bay Area since October 2011, and is working to add the scalp of Harborside Health Center — the state's biggest pot club — to her list.

Haag — who, we have been told, is actually a likable person — was scheduled to take time out of her busy day Wednesday to participate in an educational panel at Golden Gate University's law school. Then the medical marijuana folks got wind of this event and quickly organized a protest in her honor.

Then Haag got wind of this protest and a few hours before she was scheduled to speak, she bailed.